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Mark Casiano's Interesting and Amazing Things
I'm starting my newsletter which I intend to publish on a weekly basis every Monday. I called this publication Interesting and Amazing Things in hopes to cover topics around finance, savings and investing, smart spending, and personal development.
If there are strategies stated in this publication, please execute them at your own risk and/or consult with a professional.
Personal Finance
How to help your children become financial powerhouses
Short-term, returns are often horrible. But investing isn’t a sprint. It’s a marathon. Over long periods, a diversified portfolio is far less risky. Consider the 25 years ending with the 2008 financial crisis. That was scary. U.S. stocks cratered 37 per cent in 2008: the biggest calendar-year decline since 1931. But U.S. and Canadian stocks averaged 10.2 per cent and 8.8 per cent annually, respectively (measured in Canadian dollars) ending Dec. 31, 2008. There’s nothing scary about that.
Smart Spending
Guide to inflation: Price changes, the pandemic and your pocketbook
Inflation is simple to describe, but its effects—and how it’s measured—are surprisingly complex. At the most basic level, inflation is an increase in the price of goods and services over time, and an inflation rate is a measurement of how much prices have changed. This uncomplicated explanation, however, disguises the challenges in defining and measuring the changing cost of living.
What Is an Acceptable Debt-to-Income Ratio?
You often read in the media that the average Canadian has a debt-to-income ratio (DTI) of around 176%. Statistics Canada monitors the financial health of consumer households with this ratio. For their purposes, they use total household credit (including all mortgages, credit card debt, bank loans, and other consumer debt) to annual disposable income. Using total debt rather than monthly debt payments is why this number is so high. For the economy, the number itself is not important, it’s the overall trend, and the average Canadian debt-to-income ratio has been on the rise.
So how do you know if you have too much debt to handle? What is a recommended or acceptable debt-to-income ratio for an individual?
Conclusion
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